The Cruel Stars of the Night - Kjell Eriksson [110]
“Come back,” he said, “before you go anywhere.”
Laura nodded, but knew they would never see each other again.
He didn’t let go of her hand.
“Whatever has happened, you have to like yourself,” he said. “Everything is not your fault.”
What is “everything,” she wondered.
“You saw the tractor out there,” Lars-Erik went on. “For close to two years I have been restoring it. Egg-Elsa sometimes teases me and says I’m married to a fifty-year-old tractor. It’ll be finished soon. I drove it out of the workshop yesterday. But what then?”
Laura didn’t really understand what he was getting at with his question. She pulled her hand from his.
“You know that . . .”
“I know,” Laura said.
The letters from her mother to Lars-Erik’s father were in her purse. About thirty in all, written over a ten-year period. Three a year. That wasn’t very much but Laura only had only received one letter and two postcards from Alice.
The letters weighed on her. As if she had a bomb in her bag. She didn’t know if she would be able to bring herself to read them. Not right now. Maybe later, by the sea. Read them out loud to the staff and the other diners who would not understand a word but would listen and smile anyway.
The visit to Lars-Erik had made her despondent. Not that she wished she hadn’t done it, because if she hadn’t gone back to her mother’s landscape one last time she would have regretted it. Now it was over. The next to last stop behind her.
She was happy to have come into these greetings from her mother, but a fear of what the letters might contain and her jealousy toward her uncle—who had had such a lengthy and almost intimate contact with Alice—soiled the landscape and Laura’s own memories. The visits, together with Alice, to Mårten and his three sons, now took on a different meaning. Had Mårten and Alice been in love? The letters would perhaps provide an answer.
Again she stood outside and peeked into Alice’s world. Instead of putting the landscape behind her as she had thought she would be able to accomplish with her visit to Skyttorp, the letters gave rise to new questions.
She felt Lars-Erik’s gaze on her back as she got into her car. The smoke from Egg-Elsa’s house billowed thickly. In the ditches the ferns were wilting and creating a yellowing edge to the green spruce curtain.
She pulled out onto the the road behind a lumber truck, whose heavy load made the ground tremble, followed it a kilometer or so before she overtook it but then immediately regretted it since the forceful vehicle had seemed to guide her through the terrain of memories.
It had felt safe to lie behind it and let the truck set the speed. Now she was driving along much too quickly.
Thirty-six
How small he is, Ottosson thought. He stood there looking at Fredriksson from the foot of the bed, feeling somewhat at a loss as he always did with hospital visits.
Ann Lindell felt guilty. She had not yet shown the picture of the unknown woman to anyone. If she were to pull it out now it would be like adding yet another stone to the burden of her defenseless colleague.
“The question is what he was doing in Kusenberg,” Ola Haver said.
“Jan-Elis Andersson in Alsike,” Lindell said.
“Maybe he had an idea,” Ottosson said. “You know how Allan is.”
The bouquet of flowers in his hand was drooping.
“Should I get something to put them in?” Lindell asked.
Ottosson nodded absently. Lindell was glad to leave the hospital room for a few moments. When she returned Ola Haver was leaning over Fredriksson.
“At least he’s breathing,” he said and Lindell couldn’t help smiling as she arranged the flowers. They were not beautiful but Ottosson had insisted that they should bring something with them.
Suddenly Fredriksson opened his eyes. Haver jumped and grabbed Lindell’s arm.
“He’s awake!”
“Allan, can you hear me?” Ottosson asked in a loud voice.
Fredriksson’s eyes glimmered in response but then he appeared to sink back into the fog.
“The coat,” he said, almost inaudibly
Opening his mouth appeared to be an incredible effort. There